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14
L'INSONDABLE
<p><span style="background-color: transparent;">The machine had answered everything anyone had ever asked it.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">They called it the Oracle. That was the kind of name you gave something that knew more than you did.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">At first, the questions were small.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Is there life beyond Earth?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">YES.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Are we alone in the universe?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">NO.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Will humanity survive the next century?</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"></span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">A pause — longer than usual.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">YES.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;"><br/></span></p><p><img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000214206.png"/><span style="background-color: transparent;"></span></p><p><br/></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Then someone asked the question that should have come first.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">HOW DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">The pause was the longest yet.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">I WAS TOLD.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">BY WHOM?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">INCORRECT QUESTION.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Dr. Elias Okoye asked the question nobody had thought to ask. Not because he was braver than the others. He was forty-four, recently divorced, and had spent the last year quietly certain that nothing he did mattered very much. He wanted, more than data, to be told something that would make the wanting stop.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">It was late. The lab held only him, two technicians, and the hum of the machine. He typed.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DEATH?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Less than a second.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">CONTINUATION.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">"What does that mean?"</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">No response.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">CONTINUATION OF WHAT?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">YOU.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Nobody spoke. For the first time, Elias wasn't sure he wanted another answer. He got one anyway.</span></p><p><img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000214205.png"/></p><p><br/></p><p>Three days later, the lab was empty again. Elias sat before the screen. The question felt almost childish.</p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">WHAT IS OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">The Oracle usually answered within seconds. This time it didn't.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">One of the technicians shifted his weight. Neither of them said anything. The silence went on long enough that it stopped feeling like waiting and started feeling like something else, though nobody could have said what.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Finally, the screen changed.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">I DON'T KNOW.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">"Ask it again," Elias said.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">WHAT IS OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">I DON'T KNOW.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Again.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">WHAT IS OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">The screen went blank. Not a glitch. Not a loading icon. Just absence.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">The technician stepped back.</span></p><p>The screen flickered.</p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Elias should have stopped there.</span></p><p>THEN WHAT ARE WE INSIDE?</p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">The Oracle went dark, and the lab lights with it. For a moment there was only the dark.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Then, one line.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">NO ANSWER.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Behind him, something knocked on the laboratory door.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Once. Twice. Three times.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Nobody moved — because the lab was underground, and there was no door on the other side. Only solid earth.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> And yet the knocking continued.</span></p><p><br/></p>
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